I would push for more production and Steve Miller would say, "Why do you want to have more production when you have real songs? You don't want to cover up the song."

It's just that you don't have to bring it to every stage. You can do a fundraiser for people that you support. You don't necessarily have to talk about one thing or another when you're on your own.

I have odometer readings, kids; all sorts of measurements of what I've been doing for the last 20 years. I get it. I get that it was a while ago.

Sixties folk rock was my original muse and the folk audience-people who listen to music off the beaten track-fostered my career. I definitely don't want to abandon the genre but I also need to make sure I'm Dar Williams first.

Sometimes I see myself fine, sometimes I need a witness. And I like the whole truth, but there are nights I only need forgiveness.

The funny thing is musicians often love to go to see visual art because you've got all these pictures to turn into metaphors.

In terms of our democracy, we are sort of shrugging our shoulders and saying, oh dear, Guantánamo, that's so awful, that's so awful, but it's here. The pendulum usually swings from left to right and then right to left, but there are so many people in power who have taken the pendulum and just pinned it to the right that there is a fear that it's never going to swing back.